I guarantee you that by April there will be 5 or 10 teams that wished they had someone this consistent to plug in as a 4th or 5th starter. There is something to be said for a guy who is able to take the ball every five days and give you 5 or 6 innings of winnable baseball game.

I thought this piece might be about a different crazy Livan Hernandez streak that was broken last year — although it’s still related to his innings-eating ways:

In every season from 2000 to 2008, he had at least 10 wins AND 10 losses. He was one win short last year from keeping it going.

Note that he’s also only exceeded 15 wins once (17, in 2000) and 15 losses once (16, in 2002). His numbers stay right down the middle, which is also unfortunately true of many of his off-speed offerings.

The main reason teams keep bringing him back is for this reason. Ironically, he’s also a teammate of Marquis who has an interesting streak of being on a postseason team (even if not the roster) every year of the 2000s decade (despite playing for 4 teams) is incredible too. That is pretty sure to end though. He’s also been a durable starts making innings eater despite having some below average seasons. Livan has the curve ball, change up and off speed that help compensate for his fastball which he gets rocked on. He is generally better in April, May, and sometimes June, than in any of the last 3 months. He was arguably the Mets best starter besides Santana during the first 3 months of the season while they were running close with the Phillies and Marlins. The Nationals always either have bad luck or an apparent pitching slot open so it wouldn’t suprise me if he gets the opportunity to make 30 starts. I’m just not sure he’ll be good enough to do so again. They’ll be less pressure on him in Washington though. Once they’ve lost enough games, they are just happy to send anyone out there who’ll give them 5 innings even if he gives up 5 or 6 runs. They are just happy to have a chance to rally and pray their bullpen can hold out (I don’t know if I can remember a time they did on the Phillies last season).

Livan Hernandez is ( was ) a good ML pitcher and has been at least steady for almost all 15 years. Over 150 wins (150 Losses) with a 4.43 ERA, all those innings, games, etc. See how many pitchers today or at any time you know that have done that for this long and still are doing it. You can not get an ace all the time. I will bet that there are no more than 10 true aces at best in MLB, and believe me there is no best overall fifth starter than Livan Hernandez today, or perhaps very few if so.